NMI

NMI is a payment gateway and embedded payments platform, not an acquirer, and almost nobody buys it from NMI. Network Merchants was founded in 2001 by James McKenzie and Ted Cucci, ran for years out of Roselle, Illinois and now works from Schaumburg. Francisco Partners took a majority stake in 2017, Great Hill Partners stayed on the register and Insight Partners added a growth investment in September 2021. Steven Pinado replaced Vijay Sondhi as chief executive in September 2025. The company counts 6,000 channel partners, more than 1.2 million active merchants, 235,000 connected devices and over $700 billion in annual payments volume. Its own ISO page states the model in one sentence: NMI does not recruit merchants directly.

Much of the platform was bought rather than built. NMI acquired the Bristol gateway and EMV kernel firm Creditcall in early 2018, card-present gateway USAePay in February 2021 and merchant CRM IRIS CRM in December 2021. The payments onboarding and underwriting business of Agreement Express followed in January 2023, and Sphere's commercial division in October 2023. Account-to-account infrastructure provider Dwolla arrived in May 2026, which NMI called its sixth acquisition, and pricing-intelligence firm Fee Navigator a few weeks after that.

Pricing and how it works

There is no rate card and no direct sales channel. CardFellow puts it bluntly: it is not possible to go direct to NMI for the gateway or a merchant account, and every rate and fee is set by the processing company that resells it, with some advertising $10 a month and others $25. Published reseller cards show how wide the spread runs. Agvance users on the SSI program pay $30.95 a month plus $0.206 per card transaction, and $15.70 a month plus $0.27 per eCheck, for the same gateway. NMI bills the merchant, pays the partner a commission and leaves the retail price to the partner. The number on your statement says more about your ISO than it does about NMI.

What NMI is not

It is not a merchant account. NMI does not underwrite, hold funds or settle money, so your discount rate, reserve requirement and funding schedule all come from whichever acquirer your reseller places you with. The gateway sits in front of more than 150 processor connections and over 300 EMV device certifications, which is what makes an NMI integration portable when you change acquirers later. The onboarding, underwriting and risk tooling picked up from Agreement Express and Sphere is sold to partners for boarding their own merchants, not to merchants for running their own risk.

Who it is for

ISOs, agent offices, banks and vertical software companies that want one certification covering ecommerce, retail, mobile and unattended payments under their own brand, plus the merchants those partners board. If you want a gateway you can price and buy this afternoon, Authorize.Net publishes $25 a month plus 2.9% + $0.30 and will sell to you directly. If you do end up on NMI through a reseller, get the monthly gateway fee, the per-transaction fee and the notice period in writing. Reviewers report unannounced price increases, and support quality that tracks whichever partner sold the account.